JCI meets India

Last Tuesday I was glad to organize in my position as the Project Group International Leader by the JCI (Junior Chamber International), a meeting with the Indian Embassy.

The meeting was held at the premises of the Chamber of Commerce, and the topic was: Doing Business with India. The very well presented Keynote Speech was given by His Excellence, Mr. Saurabh Kumar, the Ambassador of India, followed by the Economic Snapshot presented by Mr. Zhimomi, the Commercial Counsellor of India. After this we enjoyed a vivid presentation by Mr. Nemeti, Regional Manager of South –and Southeast Asia by the AWO (Foreign Trade Department by the Austrian federal Economic Chamber). Last but not least we had two practical presentations: Dr. Pflüger from an Austrian Company AVL List GmbH on doing business with India in India, and then the other way around; Mr. Naren, the director of Coffee Day Franchise Cafès - an Indian Company doing business successfully in Austria.

On the photo from left to right: 1) His Excellence, Mr. Saurabh Kumar, Ambassador of India, 2) Verena Schermann, Secretary General of JCI Vienna, 3) Me

All in all, the meeting was a great SUCCESS. It was fully booked with 50+ participants. We had very informative speakers who shared their own experiences about doing business with India, as well as vivid networking session with Indian snacks and drinks sponsored by the Embassy of India. The World Congress of JCI takes place this year in the beginning of November in New Delhi so our timing was quite perfect… I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of our speakers and attendees, Mrs. Adam and Mr. Joseph from the Embassy of India, as well as His Excellence, Mr. Saurabh Kumar, the Ambassador of India, for taking the time and the opportunity to discuss with us; the Austrian JCI; Doing Business with India.

Yours, Niko Viramo

Success and Leadership

Last Saturday I held a presentation about Success & Leadership for the “Leadership Academy” of Finland.

The students of the Leadership Academy are 15 hand-picked, most talented young entrepreneurs and leaders of Finland that have been selected for the one year Academy that consist of three parts.
The first part is a 3-day intensive seminar in Northern Finland, the second part is a one week retreat in Cyprus, and the third part is the closing session held in Vienna, at the Hotel Tulbinger Kogel.
Last year I took myself in this Academy as a student, and it was a great experience. This year I was invited there as a Speaker, and it was a great honour for me to present for this great audience. I spoke about success and leadership; what I learned from my own experiences in Timbuktu, Kazakhstan and California. I am very much looking forward doing similar session next year as well.
Thanks Ollis for inviting me over.
Respect, Niko

The Five Roles for Leadership
by Fernando Sanchez Arias, JCI World President 2004

I attended the JCI LEAD in 2006 with Walter Labres, JCI University Director Austria (Assistant Trainer) and MacDara Hosty from Irland (Head Trainer). Not only was this leadership workshop of excellent value and I can highly recommend it to everyone; but it also left me with some valuable leadership frameworks such as the one defining the leadership roles by Fernando Sanchez, the JCI World President 2004. 

“Could you be a manager and a leader at the same time? What’s the difference between Leader and Manager? Is it possible for an executive, a scientist, a sports leader, a political leader, a house wife, a teacher to develop different roles within the framework of leadership?

Every leader acts daily with the people around to inspire them to change the vision into action, into something real. The reality depends on the versatility on which the new leader moves on the roles that he or she needs to develop as a human being.

On the program of JCI LEAD, The JCI, Worldwide Federation of Young Leaders and Entrepreneurs, presents the Leader’s Hand that establishes that every leader, to be effective, should play with absolute mastery the five following roles:

MANAGER: A manager seeks to administrate the necessary resources, coordinate actions, generate results, measures, control, and report and assure the quality of the processes, goods and services.

VISIONARY: A visionary creates the vision, he or she creates the means to communicate the vision effectively to inspire it emotionally and rationally to the members of his team. He acts as a change agent.

COACH: A coach acts as a scout in sports, seeking for talents internally and externally. He or she works on the development of successors and the need to expand their potential through interaction of coaching.

EDUCATOR: An educator transfers information, knowledge, and experience through educative sessions such as conferences, workshops, learning conversations in which members of a team develop competencies as well as the intellectual resources of an organization as a whole.

AMBASSADOR: An ambassador finds strategic alliances and mutual support relationships, to develop an effective strategy with the media and public relations with other institutions, to promote the philosophy, history and services of the organization that you represent.

It looks like the myth that the leader cannot be a manager is getting weaker when the place for successful leaders is being taken by people that even though are being good in one of the five roles, they reach a basic mastery of the rest; reaching a determined balance in meeting the objectives of the business or the organization.

The Leader’s Hand is as follows: The thumb represents the manager, the index finger represents the visionary, the middle finger represents the coach, the ring finger represents the educator, and the little finger represents the ambassador that allows you to observe yourself and analyze your performance and the results of each role.

But it is not enough to learn how to master these five roles. There is one more role, which I have named the hidden role, which is being represented by the wrist because it represents flexibility and movement to the hand and indeed by the fingers as the roles. This sixth role, as a sixth sense is the role of the

LEARNER, which is intended to seek in a proactive and intentionally manner, to develop not only information but also knowledge, attitudes and skills to make people more competitive and a better competitor towards yourself and others.

If you wish to take people around you to the top of the mountain, you should learn how to play with mastery these six roles, hard or soft; with a positive impact towards quality, effectiveness, productivity, profit and joy of what you do.

To be a manager, visionary, coach, educator and ambassador in the different moments and situations of life is what makes you feel an excellent executive, business man, community representative, scientist or a sports personality…the opportunity is there to ask yourself how good you are in each role? What do I have to learn or change to be better in each role?”

Last Monday evening we organized together with the Finnish Ambassador: Kirsti Kauppi and Werner Merzeder, Head of Finpro; Finland Trade Center, Central and Southern-East Europe, an informative evening in the name of the JCI Vienna Project Group “International”. This was a perfect timing in the sense of the Europe Conference in Turku in June 2008. In total around thirty-five young entrepreneurs and people from the Chamber of Commerce showed up. The meeting took place at the beautiful residence of the Ambassador herself in the thrid district of Vienna and it was a joyful evening.

On the picture from left to right: Dietmar Gombotz (President JCI Vienna), Verena Schermann (Executive Director JCI Vienna and the Start-Up Service Center at the Chamber of Commerce), Werner Merzeder (Head of Finland Trade), Kirsti Kauppi (Ambassador of Finland in Austria), Me, Hannes Offenbacher (CEO Mehrblick Tink-Tank).

After the introductions, the Finnish Ambassador described vividly the history of Finland and the Finnish EU -and integration policy, after which we dived into the main theme of the evening: Why is Finland so successful? What makes this country in the North so successfull? There was a lot of good discussion in the air in the means of a constructive and fun dialog through Q&A. The main 2 success boosters of Finland were defined as 1) education and b) innovation;

1. EDUCATION

The excellent educational system: It is for example fairly difficult to enroll in the university to study just about anything. Therefore for excample those who would like to become school teachers in Finland are highly motivated and mostly very talented for this speciality. The university classes in Finland are not overly crowded, having enough place to sit down for everyone. Whereas in Austria the University classes are often overcrowded, because anyone can get to study anything, and therefore there is also a huge fluctuation of people, while only a fraction of these students are really motivated to study the subject,… and finally graduate. Waste of resources I would say…

On the picture: Finnish Ambassador Kirsti Kauppi explaining about the history of Finland.

One very nice thing from the school I can remember when I was a child, was that we got a lunch. Yes, we got a lunch everyday, and it was just healthy basic food, but it was mostly quite tasty, and it was everyday a different warm meal; and it was even for free! (well, of course the taxpayers money, but still). Whereas in Austria I recognize so many kids and teenagers hang around at places like McDonalds and Kebab Stations for lunch, and of course this type of junk food also lowers their concentration skills in the class rooms later on. I mean just think about how tired you get yourself when you eat a Big Mac Menu (although its good once in a while, say once per quartal).

In Finland kids start the school system when they are 7 years old, and each child does 6+3 years of basic education. This is the minimum standard and in the same high quality is provided for everyone; no hierarchies; no calss systems. Finland is a very flat hierarhcy country where people are empowered and encouraged to become independet at already early ages. And this seems to work very well… After the basic schooling teenagers are able to choose high-school (3 years) or other schools for special professions such as becoming a carpenter etc.

Whereas in Austria, children start at the age of six, do 4 years of basic education, and then must already make a decision what to do next: high school (7years) or something else. I find this system not very encouraging, because a child at the age of 10 is still a child, and I believe most are not capable or empowered to make the best decisions in regards to their own education. How should they at that age? In many cases I am sure the parents become the captains of their childrens ships and many crash them, because they dont always know what is best for their kids and yet make groundbreaking decisions about the course of the ship.

2.INNOVATION

The other importnat booster of the Finnish economy and success is the high volume investments in R&D. Finland is one of the top 3 countries in Europe to invest in R&D. The amount has been quite stagnant at around 3.5% of the GDP. In Austria it is 2.5% (2006) and has also increased in the past years, so the direction is okay. The EU average is only 1.8%. I believe it is more like a EU wide challenge to stay competitive and create strong synergies and clusters in order to compete among other high-rising economies such as China, India, CEE and Russia. In the future European cities will compete in attracting certain speciality of industries and companies and creating strong clusters around them.

You can also crasp a really nice 360° photograph of this event by Stefan Kuzmanov at his blog as well you can read the press article about the event right here (PDF/in German).

Finally a CNT, Certified National Trainer. Last weekend I attended a Junior Chamber International JCI University “Designer” course in Finland. This is a 3 day intensive course designed for advanced JCI trainers and it encompasses theory, teamwork and presentations. The main milestone is designing a full day training program from scratch that can be standardized and presented by other qualified trainers as well.

One of my goals for this year in becoming better trainer & speaker includes the CNT Award by JCI. The opportunity to attend this course came very suddenly, and I immediately decided to join. The CNT status is crucial in order to being able to conduct trainings at the JCI World Conferences and Congresses and becoming a Head Trainer for any of the JCI standard courses. Some classics include JCI Lead (Leadership Training) and Presenter (Communications Training). The next goal for me as a JCI Trainer is to collect international training hours at the JCI Conferences and Workshops and to qualify for the IG (International Graduate) Level. This is the second highest Award by JCI University (before ITF, the highest Award) and as far as I know there are only less than 5 IGs or higher currently in Austria. My plan is to achieve the IG Award by the end of 2009 and the ITF Award by 2011 the latest.

I highly encourage all JCI (in Austria: Junge Wirtschaft) members to attend JCI University trainings. These are of excellent quality & high value, and have been tested and re-improved many times with thousands of young entrepreneurs around the world. The best way to find out about the actual courses offered is to go to the JCI Website, and click on the “JCI University” and look for current courses being trained. If you are interested in becoming a JCI accredited trainer and/or are interested in developing your training skills, I can only highly recommend you to join the JCI Training Team. If you need a mentor in this regard, please go to my Training Website and fill in the application and I will help you to find you one.

Best, Niko